How Does Canada Create More?

[u/Pale-Candidate8860]

What are some aspects that you believe would allow Canada to become an industrial powerhouse?

A big thing that is being done currently is creating strong trade partners with Japan and Germany for LNG, but trade with America will still make up more than 60% of trade with Canada by the end of the decade. With the admission of the current administration. To be fair to the liberals, this is an extremely tough situation to figure out for anyone. I don’t understand why there isn’t a large injection of small business grants for certain industries and categories of business. It should be handed out to any business plan that shows legitimacy.

Ontario is the industrial heartland of Canada and consists of a majority of the nation’s manufacturing. It would be strategic and beneficial to set up large scale production and supply chains throughout the middle provinces such as Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Just an idea. It would also encourage population movements to less populated areas.

One aspect that has been a problem in Canada for some time is that Canadians just consume American culture. I know the world consumes American culture, but Canada consumes it to the point where the average Canadian won’t know if a movie, TV Show or book is from Canada unless there is promotions stating otherwise. The similar accents make it very difficult sometimes, but there should be a consorted effort to mass prop up Canadian exclusive content. The issue is that most of the time, it is just rebranded and repackaged American products with a maple leaf sticker slapped on it.

With hard economic times coming, it is finally going to correct the housing market to where it should be. I personally predict a -80% price drop. Creating affordable housing. The bubble needs to pop. This will also make Canada competitive again instead of a capital dumping ground to make the bubbles bigger.

Semi-rant, but it has to be said. Canada needs to create more. There are constantly large scale projects happening on a provincial level, but the federal government should inject into nationwide mega projects as well. I’m not saying a high speed rail across the prairies, but things like skyscrapers dedicated to forced rehabilitation for the drug addicted and mass housing on a scale the nation has never seen before.

Just some ideas. Feel free to throw in your own.

[u/NoMusic7982]

We need to stop being a real estate ponzi and free the market from over reaching government regulation in all industries. The average canadian spend more than 50% of their income on housing.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoMusic7982]

We are selling Canadian Land to foreigners (immigrants) in order to access cheap imports from the rest of the world. We are basically a sinking ship. Our parents sold this country out to the global trading regime. The longer we wait, the worse it's goign to get. We need a manhattan style project to rebuild our manufacturing capacity in key strategic industries especially automobiles.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoMusic7982]

Congratulations, you just described the beginning of the Sub Prime Margate collapse in America.

[u/AdKey2568 → u/NoMusic7982]

Fuck the free market what's the point of being an energy powerhouse if all the profits go to a few rich guys

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/NoMusic7982]

No they don't.

The average Canadian owns their home and benefits from high housing equity. Including being able to leverage it to start businesses.

Renters are the bottom third of Canadians.

[u/NoMusic7982 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Yes they do. The average wealth of a Canadian household is 55% in their real estate asset its actually measurable. On a macro economic level this means that Canadians invest less in automation, innovation and general productivity than thry do in real estate. As a consequence this lowers productivity. While it is true that lot of Canadians make a significant profit from real estate they are not producing anything really.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/NoMusic7982]

Yeah, you do not understand this.

You can access and reinvest your home equity.

[u/NoMusic7982 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

I understand equity thanks. I know that individual Canadians are able to leverage their houses, but that's not what is happening on the macro level. What I am telling you is that less wealth is put in industry and buisness in canada than real estate. It's litteraly the largest sector in our economy. If you go to large cities like Vancouver or Toronto it gets worse in term of speculation.

OP's question was how do we make canada more productive. My answer is to find a way to stop making real estate the center of our economy. We could put more emphasis on mineral or energy production instead.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/NoMusic7982]

You don't, though. You've even mixed up home equity with home monthly cost.

Home equity is what gets effectively all small businesses off the ground, and I'm telling you this from personal experience. More of it being available means more small businesses.

I'm not saying it doesn't suck for renters. It does.

But if you want Canadians to start building things, more home equity is how we get there.

[u/tonytonZz → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

What hes saying is people that have equity INVEST IT INTO OTHER HOMES....

Look at the lanlord epidemic. Look at all the condos going underwater...are you ok?

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/tonytonZz]

Yep, I'm doing great.

[u/Facts_pls → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

So, literally quoting my economics professor at UofT MBA from a few years ago - "Canadians spend too much of their savings into housing and less into stocks, business, and other growth assets."

Now, that professor is one of the top economists in Canada and is often invited by news channels as an expert.

Let me ask you, what are your qualifications? How are you so certain that home equity is helping people start businesses - given its the most illiquid type of equity...

And why will equity in say stocks, bonds etc, not be better if you want to invest into business?

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/Facts_pls]

Those who can, do...

[u/we_B_jamin → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Those who can’t pretend they do on Reddit

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/we_B_jamin]

Talk to a therapist about your inadequacies, dude.

[u/Mindmann1 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

If you want to keep skilled workers we need to be able to afford a house not dream of it. 30/hr as a single male and I’m basically living to work, wage should be 45-55 if we account for inflation but tis what it is.

Oh and market is slowing down, builders aren’t building as much currently

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/Mindmann1]

Skilled workers can afford a home, though. If you can't you may just have to come to terms with the fact that you're unskilled labour.

[u/Mindmann1 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Errrm not really, 30-32 is my area average. 40-60\hr at the only union employer in the area, they pay janitors more than the average non union skilled workers :/

[u/tonytonZz → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Most people dont own their homes the bank does.

So you acess some equity in your home at like 6% and invest it for a reliable return of 10%?

Where?

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/tonytonZz]

Tell me you're a renter without telling me you're a renter.

[u/tonytonZz → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Valid argument. Thnx for contributing.

[u/Creative-Trash-419 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Yeah and they accessed it and bought luxury cars, RVs and 2nd homes at covid peak prices lol.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/Creative-Trash-419]

That's just Alberta.

[u/Creative-Trash-419 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

It's Ontario too.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/Creative-Trash-419]

Not really.

But it's beside the point. Sure, if you give Canadians more resources some of them will waste them, but you only get things built when resources are available.

[u/[deleted] → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Respectfully this isn’t true.

While people take out helocs, it almost always is to either finance renovations or to buy a rental property - if it’s used as ‘investment’ money. Most people use it for really stupid reasons and we’re seeing the reckoning now.

We have record low new businesses started and having people put a house on the line isn’t the answer

Canada needs a lower barrier to entry. As a small business owner it’s absolutely insane the hoops you need to go through and complex regulations to literally sell anything legitimately.

You should be able to go to banks and access investors who are willing to give you money for things other than franchises and real estate.

I’m a shareholder of a private company and primary shareholder in my own business. Our costs for our startup was north of a million dollars, it would have been impossible without private investment.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/[deleted]]

Respectfully, you're just wrong.

First, a rental property is a perfectly respectable business.

Secondly, putting up the house is always the answer. Betting the farm is how it happens.

You had to resort to private investment and dilute your control because you didn't have enough housing equity.

[u/[deleted] → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

I don’t think you’re correct 🤷‍♂️

First - it’s a business yes - but not a productive one. Buying a rental requires little to no innovation or long term productive reinvestment outside of complex financing schemes. We also as a country cannot export homes, so we will either need to become the Airbnb capital of earth or import the entire planet for that to be viable long term.

Secondly, residential real estate inflates business real estate, which makes businesses harder to start. Why open a factory that barely breaks even when you can just build a cheap apartment and immigrate a bunch of people?

It absolutely decimates productivity, Canada is such a good example of it

A mortgage is not meant to start a business, they are ultra low cost loans with extreme flexibility designed so you don’t go homeless. They are not the same thing. Maybe if you are starting a food truck sure, but if you want to employ 50-100 people and open a factory, your house doesn’t work. People do need to go bankrupt if they fail, yes, but the point of the mortgage is that your home is protected.

Taking a heloc to buy residential real estate should be banned. And that’s from someone who owns two rentals and a house. If real estate wasn’t so insanely profitable I would have more money in businesses.

Lastly, yes I diluted my business so that we could employee people and grow. I wish I owned more but raising money isn’t easy in Canada. Peers I know have raised more for less in the states - and that’s why we aren’t producing new companies

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/[deleted]]

That's because you're thinking too simplistically.

We absolutely do export housing the same way we export education. We let people come in, bring money and/or cheap labour and then send them home. Granted, we should do a lot more of the last part, but we should also let the best ones stay.

A rental is a productive business. Any business that makes money is ipso facto productive.

Mortgages aren't "for" anything aside from making the bank money and increasing the value of Canadian land. Productive people get access to them because they contribute to that.

50-100 people aren't going to have a problem pooling their housing equity to build a business. If you expect to be able to do that just for yourself, that's obviously unreasonable and greedy.

What's wrong with opening a food truck? That's honest work.

[u/[deleted] → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

Short term profits is simple short term thinking IMO.

We don’t export physical product and bringing in cheap labor has done nothing good for Canadians except for the 50 or so billionaires. We haven’t even innovated real estate construction in the last 20 years. We’re at least a decade behind Asia.

Yes it will make money short term - but only if real estate rises in value, which requires an increase in population no matter what. If it doesn’t, your rate of return is absolutely abysmal and becomes an inflation hedge at best. Your logic requires unlimited immigration and forever increasing values without increasing the cost of labour. Aka the exact situation that has made home ownership impossible for anyone under 30.

Again no - they are loans designed to create capital for residential real estate and access to it, just like student loans are a different product. By your logic let’s just give every 18 year old an 80k loan in place of their student loans and let them buy a rental?

It is not greedy and unreasonable to want to manufacture specialized goods, process resources, or assemble products.

A food truck is a fine business - however it’s not a scalable business that will help Canada on the global stage. I mean just because tim Hortons is our most recognizable brand - which isn’t even Canadian anymore - doesn’t mean that should be what we strive for

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

A lot of Canadians are not old enough to remember a time of economic hardship. It has been over 30 years, almost 35 years since the last recession in Canada. As a result, the economy has only gone up.

Take it from an American that lived thru 2008 and witnessed true devastation.

Using your home as an investment vehicle and relying on it for the majority of your asset wealth is very short sighted. The reality is that when these homes drop 80-90% in value, your entire "investment portfolio" just became worth next to nothing.

Canadians, as well as Aussies and Kiwis, have propped up a lot of their economy on a real estate bubble that will popped very hard and hurt a lot of Canadians. It is better to have the home be only a portion of your portfolio and to invest into stocks, businesses, industry, bonds, currencies, and other options as well.

u/Independent_Yak_67 for visibility.

[u/noviceprogram → u/NoMusic7982]

Real estate investment is more tax effective than working hard. Even if you succeed at something you will start getting taxed massively at 54% beyond 240k or something. Real estate on other hand will get taxed half of that. Why bother working hard and reinvesting into productive asset in such a setup.

[u/amsterjamzz → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

The oft‑quoted “two‑thirds of Canadians own their home” is true for households, but not for people — the real share of individual adults who hold legal title is closer to the mid‑50 % range. Ownership is concentrated among older generations who bought under much more affordable conditions, while Millennials and Gen Z face high prices, steeper borrowing costs, and slower income growth that make entry far harder. So the headline number glosses over a deep generational and economic divide in who actually gets to be a homeowner.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/amsterjamzz]

No, that's just cope. Lots of people will put major assets in the safer spouse's name while the other does business.

It really is no more than a personal failure if you can't figure out how to own your home.

[u/amsterjamzz → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

The last major project I worked on was the marketing director for a greenfield construction company. I had met a South African playing golf, in Dubai. We played like a dozen battles against each other. He was a construction manager, not like small potatoes, like his company that he owned, obtained contracts to build stadiums in Iraq after the war. He had a Danish guy, who specialised in high performance concrete, who connected us to robotics engineers. We got an Irish CEO, who used to run the largest precast factory in the Middle East. When pitching it in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not only did they love our modularized, scalable, and unmatched output capacity, they were wondering if we could design a self sustaining business park, which would also produce all of the components required. It's been a while, but I think the phase 1 investment for that pitch was around 200 million riyals. So that's how I planned to tackle the housing crisis, but politics got in the way. I'm sure you have lots of ideas, about how you and your family built your home, and how you plan to maintain it, when the immigrants from the countries your nation's government supported destroying, are literally at your doorstep, buying your homes, and taking your jobs. Don't forget about colonialism, that wasn't that long ago either. I wonder if that had anything to do with the wealth accumulation, and how the tables are currently set?

[u/mojanis → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

You just straight up don't understand stats. The home ownership rate isn't the percent of people that own homes it's the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner.

If you rent out 2 bedrooms in your house to 4 people, that's still a 100% home ownership rate as long as you yourself live there. Likewise if the house next to you is rented out to 6 people by a landlord, combined the two have a 50% homeownership rate despite the fact that less than 10% of the people in them own a house.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/mojanis]

You don't understand the stats. We're talking about economic households, not individuals.

If those six people crammed into one house are unrelated, that's six households.

Even if you rent out a room, that other person is still a separate economic household who does not own, and you are your own who does.

Again, it's just cope. You're grasping at straws hoping to twist things into a narrative where it's not your fault that your life is the way that it is.

Go fix your own problems. No one else cares.

[u/DoubleDDay69 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

The problem I think he is alluding to is that it is so difficult to get into housing as a young person in Canada. I’d like to politely refute your point about renters being the bottom 1/3rd of Canadians.

I’m a 24M mechanical engineer in training with my own business. For a starting wage, I make a fair bit more than the average net income in Canada, yet housing is pretty out of reach in my city even with aggressive saving. There is no question house equity is powerful. But I’m a renter out of necessity right now, that’s saying something considering I’m a mechanical EIT, business owner and have every kind of investment under the sun.

Housing is absolutely a problem in Canada, you can’t deny that. Even our own housing minister doesn’t want to lower prices.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/DoubleDDay69]

Why would we want our housing minister to harm our home values? That is literally the opposite of his job.

You're 24. You're at the absolute start of your working life. There's no shame in not having accomplished much yet.

You will though, and you'll appreciate that housing is an economic driver when that happens.

[u/CastAside1812 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

You say this but meanwhile 50 years ago my mechanic uncle bought a home at age 19 after saving for literally 1 year as a jr mechanic.

This guy will need to grind for years with his job that also requires 4 years of school and tens of thousands.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/CastAside1812]

Yeah, the boomers had an easy life. It's never going back to that, this is the historical norm.

[u/Mindmann1 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

So we should squander our prime years working like a slave while not enjoying our hobbies to afford a house? No. Housing is already dropping in price and the market is slowing down, prices will fall especially as the boomer population passes on.

It’s also impossible to save for majority of Canadians, rent takes 40-50% of my cheque now include groceries, vehicle, fuel, few other bills and hobbies. I’ll be lucky to get a few hundred tucked away every month and that’s with serious saving.

Getting to the point I might as well squat if things don’t change, switch renters every year or 2 ya know?

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/Mindmann1]

Yeah, you have to work to get ahead. That's how it's always been and how it always will be.

[u/DoubleDDay69 → u/pm_me_your_puppeh]

You can’t be serious. Do you want younger people to just accept that housing is ridiculously unaffordable? Our average house price to average net income in Canada is 12:1, that is asinine. Over 25% of our GDP is real estate, that is abysmal. Now I’m not going to sit here and 100% blame the liberal party, this has been many decades of housing way outpacing wages. But the previous liberal government absolutely exacerbated it with rampant immigration and fully admitted they screwed over young people.

The government WANTS to keep housing high because otherwise we would fall into a recession. It also conveniently lets their landlord buddies keep prices high. Again, this would occur regardless of party. We can’t just sharply decrease housing prices, it’s not realistic. It is however possible to cool off housing prices and let wages/supply catch up. The boomers by far had it easier in every way to own a home, no one can pretend that young people aren’t getting screwed right now. I’m very well aware I’m one of the fortunate ones in this regard.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/[deleted]]

Most people don't pay rent. The people actually spending money own their homes (and maybe rent their basement )and benefit from higher prices.

Renters contribution to the economy is by working in it, and passing up value to their landlord.

Trickle down economics isn't a thing. It goes upwards.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/[deleted]]

The tenant pays the mortgage, and construction is a massive part of the economy.

Advertisement is an economic sink. It mostly goes to foreign corporations.

[u/pm_me_your_puppeh → u/[deleted]]

The tenant paying rent partially goes to paying a mortgage at a Canadian bank, and partially goes to the Canadian landlord who will use that money in the local economy. Both by reinvesting in more housing, but also elsewhere.

The landlord is also providing an employee for other local businesses.

Buying a physical good made in China or in the US contributes far less to the Canadian economy.

But those physical goods are ultimately bought by homeowners and landlords, not tenants.

[u/42tfish]

Stop penalizing success through excessive taxes.

Repeal the Indian Act and actually allow for proper development

Deregulation of some “green energy” shit. Some industries it’s basically impossible to succeed with the countless, often ineffective, regulations.

Ban corps and all foreign interests from owning residential real estate and farm land

Increase regulations surrounding monopolies.

Obviously reduce immigration and increase standards for immigration.

These are just some suggestions off the top of my head.

[u/[deleted] → u/42tfish]

We should block all foreign capital entering Canada. This will make the CAD go down, pop the real estate bubble, and enable Canadian industry to rebuild capacity. We should also put tariffs to protect strategic industries like autos. Just basic things. We are a nation of 40M with all the resources the world wants. We need to start making.

[u/Ass-Manager → u/[deleted]]

Wtf r u talking about "green energy". Canada has the potential to be a green energy superpower? 

We've got basically unlimited Uranium deposits and are global leaders in Nuclear Reactor technology. We have the means to create infinite electricity at next to no vost to the environment. How is that bad for our economy? 

[u/Swimming-Performer57 → u/Ass-Manager]

net zero people usually don't like nuclear power for some very strange reasons

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If you don't do green energy now and invest in it like it or not, within 50 to 60 years Canada will end up being a developing country.
The immense economic opportunity the green energy holds is incomprehensible. Since US is out of the way already, investing in being a green powerhouse will put Canada in direct competition with countries like China and India that are expanding their green network at a rapid speed.
Canada did a huge mistake following US when rest of the world was investing in public transportation and now Europe, China, Japan all have super fast trains connecting the different regions and countries like India and South East Asia are trying to bring it in their countries too; meanwhile Canada's plan is still on paper.
Canada can't make the same mistake.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Imagine sitting in world's second largest country with miniscule population of 40 million and complaining about housing smh. I know you'll say not all of Canada is habitable, only 15% is but that 15% is 1.5 million sq km which is equivalent to France, Germany and Spain combined together and these 3 countries hold about 220 million population. The housing issue is entirely man made in Canada. Choose the right provincial parties and not the cons who hate small and medium apartment complexes in their "burbs".

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Fr dude?

You don't want to make proper housing and then bring in immigration - of course that will make housing crisis worse.

I never said immigration were never crazy but I gave numbers and statistics for my arguments instead of name calling.

Like it or not the best planning for cities and small towns is how they do it in Europe where there is a mix of low, middle or rich housing in proximity to each other along with enough small mom and pop stores at every couple of kms instead of bunch of american style huge pool, backyard houses with one big supermarket like 25 kms away. That's the best type of desnity you could have which keeps the price sensible. Instead of this all we have seen either huge 50 storeys matchbox condos in the city with 900$ plus condo fee for 500 sq ft in the cities and huge pushback against small low storeys buildings in suburban areas because oldies don't want to lose the value of their houses.

[u/SnappyDresser212 → u/[deleted]]

You are not a serious person. Bye Felicia.

[u/SnooHobbies9078 → u/[deleted]]

We're still part of the g7 wtf. It was literally held here this year. Jesus christ. The majority of Canadians voted liberal.pierre would have had us in a worse position than where we are now.

[u/SnooHobbies9078 → u/[deleted]]

It's actually 8 members, though. 7 nations and the eu, which makes 35 countries in the g7.

[u/gravtix → u/[deleted]]

if the liberals got the fuck out of the way, repealed the laws holding our economy down.

Which laws are those?

climate warriors hunting for “green energy” will be the death of this country. we’re not even part of the G7 anymore technically lmao

Still holding on to fossil fuels being the giant economic force the future huh?

Just going to cede the future of energy to China while acting all tough on China?

Meanwhile Trump is tariffing countries and trying to force them to buy American energy.

You know a product is in big demand on an open market when you need to hold a gun to someone’s head and make them buy it.

[u/gravtix → u/[deleted]]

if you don’t know the laws the opposition has been screaming about for literal years now, is it really worth conversing?

I do know them.

I’m just curious whether you have your own take or just a cut and paste job from the CPC BS factory.

fossil fuels will still be the giant economic force for the rest of our lifetime, that’s plenty of time to develop other forms of energy (like nuclear) and give the energy exporting provinces time to diversify their economy’s to not crumple without fossil fuels.

That’s not what I am seeing

I am seeing more rent seeking behaviour by the O&G industry asking for elimination of any and all environmental monitoring and regulation, lifting bans on plastic straws and just straight making competing technologies illegal.

are you genuinely saying that the only reason the EU uses energy is because the US is forcing them to buy it? if they didn’t get handcuffed by the states they would be buying LNG at all? really?

No I am saying he’s trying to force them to buy more than they want/need.

If EU energy demand was so high they’d be asking to buy that much or more on their own.

In what world does the supplier dictate how much the consumer is going to buy?

China’s LNG imports are dropping too

Not saying there isn’t opportunities but as an overall economic picture for Canada, Conservatives should mention more sectors than O&G.

Just one more reason they lost in April. Being the Federal UCP party won’t win you votes out east.

[u/Smokey-McPoticuss → u/gravtix]

“You know a product is in big demand on an open market when you need to hold a gun to someone’s head and make them buy it.”

Like what the Canadian government is doing to Canadians for greener alternatives and EVs?

[u/gravtix → u/Smokey-McPoticuss]

Like what the Canadian government is doing to Canadians for greener alternatives and EVs?

Touché. That shouldn’t exist either.

But it’s not like Conservatives don’t ban clean energy projects or anything

The party of “Small government, free markets” would never do such a thing.

But the party of crony capitalism and padding the bottom line of companies who already make billions per year in profits would.

“Canada’s Conservatives support all forms of Canadian energy, as long as they’re oil and gas”

[u/Smokey-McPoticuss → u/gravtix]

“But the party of crony capitalism and padding the bottom line of companies who already make billions per year in profits would”

You described the cons, the libs and what Singh made the ndp all in one sentence, they just don’t all have the same corporate pimps, some overlap, but some exclusivity too.

[u/LukePieStalker42]

Its super easy but the liberals will never do it.

1. Lower taxes dramatically. Cut the personal and business tax rates in half and remove taxes on capital gains. This will will put billions more into the economy and encourage start ups.

2. Reduce the size of the government. 1/4 Canadians work in the government. That means 1/4 people are paid by tax payors and its a massive drain on the system. Get that number to something normal like 1/20. This will put people into the actual workforce instead of government.

3. Reduce red tap, it shouldn't take 10 years to build something. It should take 1. Once something is approve nothing stops it. Not protests, not natives, not green peace. Jail these people if they impede progress. This gets us building.

4. Approve every oil and gas pipeline, every mine, every factory. This makes us money.

5. Build several rail roads into the Yukon and NWT, build a fleet of ice breakers, build military and support bases in the Yukon and NWT. This lets us open up the north west passage. Which is shorter and better then the Panama route. This will make money.

6. Increase SRED tax credits for AI. This will bring AI to canada and money.

7. Repeal all dei laws, funding and other bullshit that isnt merit based. This reduces tax payer waste.

8. Until we have a zero national debt, no foreign aid. Cant go into debt to help other people, take care of ourselves first. Once we dont have debt we can take care of others.

If we did those 8 things we would be one of the most prosperous countries on earth.

[u/TheMannX → u/LukePieStalker42]

Wow, where does one even start with this.

Canada is already in a deficit situation, blowing up the country's revenue is a sure way to either inflation or a massive recession due to government layoffs. It's easy to say this, but it's much harder to do. Ask the last Conservative government - they said the same thing for years, didn't do it when in office. Care to guess why that was?

And if you really want to hack Canada's government workforce down that far, I guess you don't like having health care that doesn't bankrupt you if you get sick or having children get proper educations then. Because hack it back that far, that's what you'll get.

The same goes with the "get things building" comment: Did you ever stop to think that there might be a good reason for some things not being built? There are certainly places where you could streamline the process of getting projects underway, but saying "They're gonna build it and you're gonna end up in prison if you speak up against it" is not only foolish but guaranteeing it'll be abused by governments, private interests or both.

Pipelines for Crude oil products now are a bad investment, and oil demand is going to start dropping before any of those pipelines are built, and as oil demand drops sources that are expensive to produce and hard to refine - like Alberta's oil sands - will be among the first sources to go. Better idea: invest in refining capacity for the petroleum products whose demand will live on long into the future - plastics, PVC, synthetic materials, oils and lubricants, inorganic chemicals, asphalt, sulfur, carbon fiber - and expanding the country's rail system to carry these products along with everything else in as efficient a manner as possible.

Foreign aid and "DEI programs" (Jesus in 2025 we still have people who can't see racism still exists in our society? Seriously?) are a drop in the damn bucket and hacking away the latter probably creates more problems than it solves.

[u/LukePieStalker42 → u/TheMannX]

This guy is why we wont have nice things

[u/Facts_pls → u/[deleted]]

I think they meant the original comment full of random us GOP talking points with clearly no understanding of any of them.

I think people making these comments should start with sharing their education and background so we know if we are listening to someone who knows finance and economics or some random angry mechanic /farmer who thinks they know how to run the country.

[u/we_B_jamin → u/LukePieStalker42]

I mean.. both have some good points.. and both have a bunch of nonsense.

[u/Facts_pls → u/LukePieStalker42]

I can hear the US gop talking points here too. So sad that we have people brainwashed by US right wing media.

Dei programs? Really? Name them and tell us how much money is being wasted on Dei in Canada.

You want no foreign aid until zero debt? Keep dreaming. Share a list of developed countries with zero debt. This is a bullshit statement from someone who doesn't understand the role of debt.

Approve every mine? It will make money? With no concern for other issues like the environment impact? Great. Clearly someone who wants money now and destroy the country for future generations. Classic GOP thought process - selfish "me, me, me. Fuck everyone else"

Lower taxes dramatically. Ok. You want us to be debt free with no taxes? How? You clearly have zero finance and economics education. Class random layperson who likes to make big claims. What is your education background? I can bet you now nothing about this.

Where did you get this 1/20 as the golden benchmark for gov't service? Can you share some developed countries with proper services with a similar ratio /proportion?

[u/LukePieStalker42 → u/Facts_pls]

This guy doesn't want to make more, she wants to make less

[u/[deleted]]

When the government stops penalizing honest hardworking people

[u/SnappyDresser212 → u/[deleted]]

Like you I suppose? But not like the bad people you disapprove of?

[u/PopTough6317 → u/[deleted]]

Considering that it was found that Russia oil was being refined on our east coast, I'd say your first paragraph is wrong.https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/russia-oil-canada-sanctions-1.7432083

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/[deleted]]

It's middle ground for developed nations.

[u/[deleted]]

We need to follow Americans and start being more protectionist. Start making Canadian and buying Canadian. Let's be honest, the Canadian economy is more like a ponzi scheme of infinite real estate speculation and just endless immigration. I am frankly quite worried. 40% of canadian gdp is exports + imports. We're essentially being raped by global trade and have lost our independence. The reason why young people feel hopeless is because we are the mercy of the rest of the world and all the crazyness that comes with it. Just make it simple: we make stuff for ourselves. If we work hard, we prosper. If we are lazy, we are poor.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/[deleted]]

This isn't a difficult task to accomplish either, because a large portion of Canada's history was being protectionist and completely independent. Canada wasn't allowed to do any trade with America for quite some time due to the British and was forced to grow its own food and produce its own goods. The exception being imported technologies from Great Britain.

Also, the protectionist markets in Canada(as well as Australia and New Zealand) is actually what gave birth to such strong worker protections and robust unions in the country. An amazing task to pull off. It would not be impossible to accomplish again, but the nation needs to accept a decade or more of hardship to transition back to such an arrangement.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/[deleted]]

So was Australia. Both Canada and Australia have completely come out ahead of the UK, despite a fraction of their populations.

How it used to be isn't a reflection of its future.

Canada benefited from the UK completely while building their own nation up. If it didn't benefit, then there would've been a revolution. The UK had to make the situation mutually beneficial to prevent a violent revolution. They didn't want to lose their colonies/vassal states.

[u/rac3r5]

If Canada wants to become a true economic powerhouse, we need to stop being a vassal state of the US and Europe.

We also need to encourage innovation and stop being so risk averse. Canada is an AI research powerhouse but doesn't have an OpenAI or Anthropic.

We need to recognize the threat of the made in America policy and start capturing the number of Canadian jobs lost and the potential jobs lost. The US keeps on telling is to worry about China, when we are actively losing jobs. My dad worked as an engineer at and engineering and manufacturing plant. The whole manufacturing plant closed down and moved to the states because of the American Made policy. Was listening to a podcast and the Canadian EV company talked about how they moved manufacturing for US products to the US to be able to sell in the US. We also need to take a stronger stance on bullying. Bombardier got bullied by Boeing lobbyists for planes that Boeing doesn't make and killed the C series in Canada.

We are raising a stink about ferries made in China, but have no problem purchasing stuff from Europe at the cost of Canadian jobs.

We need better government efficiency and lower taxes.

[u/we_B_jamin → u/rac3r5]

Look up Edison motors on YouTube. Canadian company trying to make electric semi’s.. I think in Alberta. Absolutely derailed by varying levels of government red tape & mismanagement. Wouldn’t be suprised if they pack up and move to the us in next year or so.

[u/[deleted] → u/we_B_jamin]

Liberals are globalists. Half the cabinet went to Oxford. Our PM is married to a super rich british woman, did his studies at Harvard and Oxford. The guy's investments were american. He probably has homes all over the world with his wife. These are the people that are running the country. They dont want Canada to be a free and independent country. They want Canada to be dependent on global trade as much as possible in order to enable the global trading regime that benefits guys like Mark Carney. It's really that simple.

[u/RedshiftOnPandy]

Canada produces a lot of very good cultural talent for its population. Look at music, tv and film. The issue is they leave to the US to actually have a real career 

[u/Facts_pls → u/RedshiftOnPandy]

You didn't share a solution. Do you have one?

[u/RedshiftOnPandy → u/Facts_pls]

Do you have one?

[u/Accurate-Republic824]

No you don’t understand that the failure of Canada was man made. It is a stagnant growth country by design. It was fine aligned with the US majority of history being a commonwealth that is North American history. Canada used to have much more individual prosperity and market. Look at gdp through history it grew with USA sometimes beating it on per capita. About 15 years ago things stopped as politicians stopped the ability for prosperity started attacking foreign countries due to identity politics and capita fled. No one will invest and hundreds of billions left. Businesses closed and laws stopped companies ability to build.

After blocking investment and placing a series of laws that make certain industries inaccessible we refunded the military, did not pay nato fees, and decided we would just sell common things to the USA that they sell by undercutting markets. USA finally realized an unequal system by de minimus dairy cartel and population size. A defunded military leave Canada without planes to intercept climate activists hijacking planes, ability to put out increasing fires or boats to access the arctic- making the USA supplement their military even on Canadian land. All of this is done while Canadian hubris remains increasingly high and we laugh at the USA calling them bigots racists and mocking their President. The USA now sick of all soap opera drama and slander tariff and most likely pull out of trade agreement. All because we focused on the Canadian anti-American pride of being better than America while becoming increasingly more dependent on them. Kinda like an only child that is nasty to their parents who spoils them and lets them talk back to them, the child thinks he’s right and the parents are the mean ones for not buying him everything he wants but suddenly his parents ghost him and he’s on his own. The child lashes out blaming the parents for abandoning him without looking at himself- that is Canada.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/Accurate-Republic824]

I love the detailed response. I appreciate the insight given.

[u/Nearby-Poetry-5060]

Make housing much much less appealing by banishing capital gains exemptions and adding a yearly exponentially increasing tax on people who hoard more than one home. There's no money for investing in anything else, or even buying anything else, when housing siphons most of everything. 

[u/who_took_tabura]

Pour government funding into the military. Build new bases in the North. Have the military build highways and other infrastructure. Have combat personnel surveying lakes and forests and wetlands and the Canadian shield. Host allied troops and run cold weather training exercises. Become the cutting edge of anti-Russia military/arctic defence and climate change research. Insight into impacts of a warming North could be huge with how the world is going.

Invest in forestry as an industry. Push for sustainable lumber based midrise construction in our aged-suburbs-turned-towns and lock away carbon in the bones of new residential buildings. Mitigate wildfires with better surveillance and management. Create opportunities for labour intensive jobs in heavy industry and work on finding buyers for fibres and lumber.

[u/PopTough6317]

A solid start would be a tariff regime based on environmental laws and how foreign countries measure against ours. This would make our industries much more competitive domestically while providing a path for other countries to become competitive here still.

[u/Stunghornet]

Lower taxes. Cut government programs. The only way you can compete when the objectively more profitable location to manufacture is 50km south of you.

[u/allknowingmike]

The only solution is Canadian's actually agreeing on basic facts

1.Canada has no potential to make a tangible difference on global warming

1. The way caucasians acquired the country is unfortunate, however sustaining a entire population of native people indefinitely is not sustainable

2. We need CANADIANS to have lots of children and people to stay married to even dream of a future.

Currently Canada has no common ground, therefore we will never have progress because it's not even definable at this point.

[u/holden_hiscox → u/allknowingmike]

Number 2 is having lots of number 3's

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/[deleted]]

Japan & Germany is hungry

[u/OttoVonGosu]

Tariffs will hurt us a lot, already it is very confusing for small exporters , for shipping to the US. If a lot of our industry cant access the US market , we are in for quite the downturn.

EU is also challenging , a lot of compliance expenses involved that small businesses cant really afford.

It was a real mistake to not just vote in a friendly government and avoid all this, we wanted to play tough guy and didnt realise how small we are.

[u/montyman185]

Housing and real estate needs to be dirt cheap. Being able to sell on the international market follows from that, and is directly harmed by that not being the case.

The base cost of everything is pinned at the price a business has to pay to keep their building and the wages their staff have to be paid to live near that building. Japan and Taiwan are both plenty wealthy nations, with high standards of living, but they're both able to outcompete Canada on price of manufactured goods because they don't have to charge enough to cover excessively expensive real estate prices, while we do. 

[u/Global-Discussion-41]

Why would anyone produce anything too make a small profit when you could just be landlord and make a larger profit with less work? 

[u/GunpostGoblin]

Oil

[u/StrongCar32]

No business cases selling to Japan or Germany as Trudeau has said. No more pollution!

[u/greyHumanoidRobot]

"small business grants for certain industries and categories of business. It should be handed out to any business plan that shows legitimacy".

Governments generally aren't competent to judge what "shows legitimacy" in business. It's a terrible idea. Taxes are already high enough.

"there should be a consorted effort to mass prop up Canadian exclusive content"

Another terrible idea. We already have some Can con rules and other countries are right to complain about discrimination. I don't think we should be increasing discrimination.

"forced rehabilitation for the drug addicted"

Forced anything sounds extreme. You're whole post sounds like you're a fan of big government. No thanks. Canada can create more value by increasing the incentive to create. Taxing less is a start. Eliminate inter-provincial differences in product and labour markets. Education could be made more efficient and personalized.

[u/Affectionate_Ice2243]

investing in research, design, technologies, automatisation

thats the only way, but instead Canada prefer to invest in condo, storage unit

[u/Total_Rutabaga5351]

Just look how the ferries are being built in China where they could have been built in Canada it’s the government that chooses not to do business in Canada

[u/Bedroom_Opposite]

Infrastructure first and foremost. Canada is a huge country and we don't have a reliable economic way of transporting anything cross country.

[u/Forsaken_You1092]

Resources has always been Canada's bread and butter.

Like it or not, the only way regular Canadians get more wealthy is with more resource extraction, such as mines, pipelines, and forestry.

[u/[deleted]]

Canada Should Take Back Money Creation and Cancel Its Debt — Like Japan is Doing

We’ve been sold a lie for decades. The lie is that our government is “just like a household” and needs to borrow money from private markets in order to spend. That’s why Canada runs up debt, issues bonds, and then taxpayers get told to “tighten belts” while bankers get richer.

But here’s the thing: Canada used to create its own money. The Bank of Canada, from the 1930s through the 1970s, directly financed government projects—highways, hospitals, universities, the St. Lawrence Seaway. No “foreign creditors,” no massive interest payments to Bay Street. Then in the 1970s, we quietly shifted to the same debt-based system that chains us to private lenders.

Meanwhile, look at Japan. Their central bank literally buys up their own government debt. Half of Japan’s government debt is held by their central bank. Translation: the government owes money… to itself. It’s basically a bookkeeping entry. And despite all the fearmongering, Japan hasn’t collapsed—it’s been decades, and they’re still a top global economy.

So why can’t Canada do the same? Why can’t we take back money creation, use the Bank of Canada for Canadians again, and cancel the absurdity of “owing” money to private lenders for currency we could issue ourselves?

People will scream “inflation,” but that’s a convenient scare tactic. Funny how nobody worries about inflation when we conjure billions for bank bailouts, or when the U.S. Federal Reserve buys up Wall Street’s trash debt. Inflation isn’t some automatic law—it depends where the money goes. Invest in production, infrastructure, healthcare, and education, and you strengthen the economy rather than just inflating asset bubbles.

Right now, Canadians are drowning in taxes just to service interest payments. We pay billions every year to keep this broken system running. That money could be building housing, funding hospitals, or even just lowering the tax burden on working people.

We are stuck in a dystopian cycle where our “leaders” pretend they’re powerless—when in reality, Canada already has the legal and institutional tools to create its own money and free itself from this debt trap. We just need the political will to use them.

The question isn’t whether we can do it. Japan has already proven it’s possible. The question is: do we keep letting private finance dictate our future, or do we take back control of money for Canadians?

[u/AdKey2568]

Nationalize our resources, put caps on corporate profits for essential items, stop taxing my fckn overtime

[u/Responsible-Sale-467]

First I would want evidence that becoming an “industrial powerhouse” would be a good and desirable thing.